Wingthorn: A miko's heart
by Thorn of the Rose
Summary: Enter Skye Wingthorn. Miko at the age of fourteen. Who is she? Whoever she is, she's the only one who can save Kurama when an epidemic strikes. What to do! Does anyone know the keys to unlocking her past?
1. Chapter 1

_Authors Note:_

_Wow. First time back in a long while, isn't it? This is my first YYH fanfic, so judge easily. Thanks enjoy!_

_PS: R and R, almost forgot! _

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_Chapter one Circle_

_Life is a circle, with no beginning or end._

A young woman, barely more than a girl at fourteen, hummed tunelessly as she straightened the white cloth that served as her garments. Some knew her as Skye, but only those who would get past that ridiculous title of honor _Lady_. Yes, My Lady, right away, My Lady. Ugh.

But she did not let her revulsion for the meaningless word show. She let nothing show, and that served as her protection from life's thorns. She knew that she herself seemed to those around her to have a barrier around her, one that could not be passed. It made her mysterious to them, causing her to have a need of watchfulness alone in the night.

She had only herself to trust, and only her soul to guide her. In the end, what else was there? Gold? It was just metal, and meant nothing to her survival, and her spirit's preservation.

Skye's ears perked up, just as a wolf's would, for there was some embodiment of the animal in her. She was one of those strange beings content just to be. One of the creatures called WolfSister and WolfBrother. Odd that one of her kind would become a Miko, but no odder than a Fox Demon bandit to choose to become Ningen, human.

A sound nearby came to her attention, echoing in her sensitive ears, and bringing an instant reaction. She stood, and whirled to face the sounds of sticks cracking and bushes being pushed aside. It was a man, panting in his hurry to get somewhere. No, not a man….a human not much older than herself.

"Hey, lady!" he called as soon as she came into view. Skye raised an eyebrow delicately, sensing that this way he used The Word was _not_ a title of respect, simply a statement that he did not know her name. Fine, it was almost refreshing in a way. She might live on her own, but the Miko in the village nearby was almost useless. She was sure this boy, so little older than her, wanted healing.

"What the heck is that, some kind of nightgown?" he asked this skeptically, and she could hear his mind wondering whether he really had felt a strong spirit energy, one that might mean help.

"What help do you need?"

_Sharp as a needle, and her voice is the same._ She wasn't quite sure what he meant, but yes, she knew her voice was sharp, yet serene, the same as it always was. The thought she had picked up this time was so tangled with strange meanings, that she gave up trying to decipher it.

"I have never heard myself compared to a needle, boy. You are odd, do you even know who I am?" Now her curiosity was piqued, who was this boy? Where did he come from, and what on earth was that he was wearing? If she didn't know better, she'd swear he was from Ningenkai.

"No. Ask me if I care."

She decided not to.

"I'm Skye. Skye Wingthorn. And no need to tell me who you are, your name is Yusuke Urameshi, and your friend is sick, yet trying to keep fighting anyway." Yusuke stopped in his tracks, eyes unconsciously wide with shock. "I advise you ignore it." she advised serenely.

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, then moved toward the direction he had come from, muttering something that sounded like an 'I don't want to know.'

Skye wasn't running though, and he looked over his shoulder impatiently. His glare told her without words to hurry up, or she would not remain unharmed. He looked about to strange her.

"Time and distance are irrelevant in a world where nothing exists the way it seems, and your senses cannot be trusted." Skye told him over her shoulder, ever serene, ever calm. Yusuke decided right there and then that this was some odd dream. Where else could a wolf demon be a Miko, and suddenly go from way behind him to right in front of him in the blink of an eye.

"I'm not a wolf demon. I'm not a demon at all. I'm a WolfSister." Her yellow eyes flashed with amusement, and her ears, so white on top of her head, flicked.

"Any point in asking what that is?" Yusuke's words came out in puffs as the jolting run forced air from his lungs. He didn't feel tired, so he couldn't be panting. Just the jolting, then. Wait, what? She stopped running.

"You don't know what a WolfSister is?"

"No. Keep moving."

Skye sighed, shaking her head in disbelief. "It used to be our race was revered." she noted regretfully while running with the graceful, long striding run of a wolf basking in the glee of running. She heard Yusuke's mind seeing that, and flicked her tail in amusement.

"Now our numbers have dwindled so much that the ka'anuuk is the only clan left. I wonder, are you the only one who has forgotten?" She skidded to a stop, and felt sickness, poison, in a man ahead.

He was resting, it seemed, but she could feel that the poison in him would be ignored. He wasn't going to stop for this illness, or any other that left him standing, an admirable if dangerous quality.

"So. You are Kurama, correct?" It was more a statement than a question to the one who had learned his name already from Yusuke's mind, and already she was prodding his mind for the toxin.

"Yes. How is it that you know my name?" Kurama stood, and she saw, more like felt, even, the muscles in his abdomen clench in pain he would not show. Without answering, she gently, yet firmly, forced him to sit again.

"Sit. Do not get back up." She told him sharply. Perhaps the name she had chosen, Wingthorn, was appropriate after all, she thought as she almost winced from the sharpness in her voice. Yet Skye noticed that even as her voice was as sharp thorns when it came to another's safety and health, it still held a measure of that unshakable serenity, an attitude as serene as the sky itself.

"Why…?" Kurama wanted to know. The question was finished in his mind. _Why am I being made to sit? I'm only a little ill, and why should that slow us down?_

"A little ill? The toxin in your system would have killed a normal human hours ago. It should have given up and been gone, but this one is holding to you. Don't try to fool me, I can feel the fever, and see the muscles clenching in pain. I'm going to help you, alright? If you do not see a well trained healer soon, you'll be hallucinating next. Fever is not something to mess with."

"Is there a Miko nearby, Lady….?" He waited patiently for her name, but she could feel the fever getting worse steadily. If left unchecked, it could dry him out and leave him crippled for life, if he even survived.

"Skye Wingthorn. Just Skye, if you please. As for a Miko, she's trying to help you, if you'll let her." Kurama's eyes closed a little at the mistake he had made, and she raised an eyebrow delicately, urging him to hurry.

"Can you help me?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Ahh, okay. Authors note time. Okay, I don't own YuYu Hakusho, not even Kurama (Sadly), but I DO own Skye Wingthorn. Thanks. Also, critisism is appreciated, though downright flames will be donated to needy Pyromaniacs. As for the lack of description of Skye, well, I did that on purpose. I'll be uploading a couple chapters today, I've already finished this story. Working on Wingthorn: Come What May as we speak. Well not exactly, but...echh. I mean this to become a trilogy._

_Thanks for listening to me babble, and enjoy. _

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_Chapter two unknown_

_The unknown carries promises of pain.  
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"Can you tell what it is?" Yusuke knelt near the pallet Kurama was (unwillingly) sitting on. His eyes blazed with anger, and she heard his mind using all of the most vulgar and vile words she had ever heard, ranting at the one who did this, whoever that person might be.

"I'm not invalid." Kurama informed them tiredly. She checked his body functions with her Spirit Energy, forcing it to act as her eyes, and they seemed to be running normally. She passed through veins and arteries on her way to check the brain, and it felt strange.

She examined the blood quickly, scanning for anything that wasn't supposed to be there. Skye felt a touch on her arm, and knew she must look odd, all stiffened as though she were dead.

Wait.

Disease! Kurama wasn't poisoned, he was sick! It did not feel familiar to her skilled, if young, touch. Some kind of one-shot illness, as she referred to the ones that could only be had once, ever.

She left his bloodstream, back to her own body, to watch him with troubled eyes. "Kurama, I was wrong. I haven't been so wrong in a long time, since before I was born. Traditionally, the Ka'anuuk have one Miko, one WolfSister capable of using all five elemental energies. We pass on our knowledge of…everything our ancestors have known through an evolved form of instinct. I can remember everything the first Miko of the Ka'anuuk knew, with difficulty, though I cannot remember how she learned it.

"You are not poisoned, Kurama, as I had thought, but ill with some disease that five hundred years of Mikos know nothing about. All I know is what I have learned from you, which is that it is something you can only get once, and that it causes high fever early on. And a rash, which you will find beginning on your left shoulder."

Three faces watched her to see what she would do, and she felt nothing at all moving through any of their minds. A quiet, unobtrusive kind of shock, she supposed. She swallowed, and beckoned for them all to follow.

"Where…" Kurama began, finishing in coughs. Skye added another item to the growing list of identifying symptoms.  
Apprehension touched Hiei's thoughts, with a blaze of inner pain that she didn't fully understand immediately. It dawned on her with horror, to see that Kurama's best friend had decided that she could do nothing for the fox.

"How long has it been since it started?" she asked calmly, serene in the face of a possible epidemic. "Did you pass through any nearby villages since then?" she felt Kurama resist an urge to scratch at his shoulder, and he shook his head, trying to clear it.

"Maybe three days. We passed through VineRose and WindStorm since then, though it really wasn't that bad…maybe I was just feeling a little off then." He told her hopefully. She shook her head, feeling how bad the fever was, and the potential to rise, and went off to search the deeper parts of the cavern that served as her home, to her fireplace. The water pot was boiling, and she steeped Willow Bark in it, and carried a cup of the willowbark tea for Kurama.

VineRose and WindStorm… how contagious was this, and how many had the group spread the disease to in such a short time? VineRose and WindStorm were named for the chosen name of the Miko who served there, as was customary in the area. SilverSand was also nearby, it might spread there as well.

She approached Kurama, and gave him the tea, threatening to hang him upside down from the roof of the cave if he didn't drink it all. Her usual calm that hung in her words convinced him more than the words that carried them, and he grimaced as he drank the bitter tea.

"If it tasted good, it likely wouldn't be much good for healing." she informed him with a mischievous glint in her eye, as she tried to lighten the mood in the 'room'. Yusuke groaned at her attempt with humor, and she gave up on that venture.

"Good news first?" Kurama nodded, and she could hear his mind hoping that it would be something foretelling a short time in bed. "The sickness is very contagious. You will have to be quarantined, and even then you may have started an epidemic." She firmly held him still while she checked the rash on his shoulder, though pox would be more accurate.

He had small gray spots that looked like necrotic flesh, if a little off color for it. Just about the size of a dime, the size of chicken pox.

"What's the bad news!"

"That was the bad news." Skye informed them. She could hear fear in Yusuke's voice now, and heard him worry that maybe he had gotten it as well. She sighed, decided that she had better tell them all of it.

"Then what's the good news? No, don't tell me. There isn't any." Yusuke sighed as well, and flopped into a sitting position on the packed dirt floor. He had given up, she knew, and was silently crestfallen.

"No, don't give up hope," she told him gently, "Not while he still has breath to go on. Not while I'm here to help him. If he has a spark of will in him, I can help him pull through, unless it's a lot worse than I thought.

He had given up, though, and was sure she wasn't good enough to save anyone, let alone someone he had grown to care about. The three had become close knit, and didn't want to separate, not like this, not at all.

"It is Pox, though, and it may be milder than Chicken Pox, or it may be harsher. We have no way of knowing at this stage. It feels like a nasty one, but I may be wrong. My quarantine area can hold ever village in Yomi's realm." She paused with slight satisfaction at the sharp intakes of breath, silent to human ears.

She peeked at Kurama's mind, and felt him shudder at the thought of cold white walls, antiseptic, and horrible hospital smells, and the sense of the dead. She picked him up, ignoring his protests, and walked deeper again into her home, ignoring the fox's protests.

"Sickness does not spread in my land, and you will find no reek of death there. It is my own world, sparsely populated, and it makes a perfect quarantine area. When we pass through the door, no one who hasn't contacted you already will be in danger. I will not confine you to a bed, only to your room. But you should like it, you can have the one with the garden and the small waterfall. The library room has a very pleasant man in it, it's right next door. He has pneumonia, though, so try not to tax his energy too much if you decide to talk with him." Kurama felt a wash if cold, icy river water it seemed, inside a out, and then he was in the bright sun.

"Will you put me down now?"

"Not until we get to your room. Once there, you are free to do as you will, but do not stray beyond the hall outside it. The next ward over is the Mental Heath ward, and they do sometimes get out. Be sure to tell me if they enter yours." She pushed through a fence door.

The fence around the fence door was a long row of small pines, the kind that made a good wall. Skye could hear him trying to remember which way he had come, as they twisted through a maze of hedges. Finally they were in one last hallway, and then…

His room.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter three Lost_

_Search for the last ray of light, when all is lost._

"How are we going to find him in this maze?" Hiei was demanding. Skye glanced at him with mild surprise, surprise that he had said so much at once. She shrugged noncommittally.

"You don't need to."

She pushed past the garden fence into Kurama's room, and found Tai in there too. He looked worried for his new friend, and Skye could see why.

Kurama's fever had risen, despite the willow bark tea, and he was sleeping. "What happened here?" she asked gently. He shook his head fearfully, and she listened to his mind instead, which was telling her that he had been sleeping all night and well into the afternoon.

"He isn't going to wake for more than a few minutes. You had best go back to your room and read. Have you read any of the books by Guinivere Collins? No? You should, they are very good." She herded the man out of the room, and closed the door, locking it.

"You're a Miko, can't you do anything to heal him?" Yusuke's voice betrayed nothing but impatience, but she decided to avoid any thoughts that came with it.

"The _healing_ a Miko will use does nothing but accelerate time's passage on the area being healed, no that does _not_ cause the person to age. If I accelerated time with him, I'm willing to bet the fever would kill him. Seizures come when one has had a bad fever for a while, and we'll see that anyway, but those are dangerous too, if they're moving too fast for me to help. In shorter words, my answer is _no_." Bare irritation showed through her voice, a sign of the strain, which she knew surprised Hiei.

"I'm sorry Mother…I should have told you…" All eyes turned to see Kurama mumbling under his breath. Skye touching his hand pityingly, and she heard Hiei realize that she did, after all, care.

"He doesn't know where he is." she told them sadly. "His eyes and ears are showing him a different place, perhaps a different time as well."

She stood, straightening white robes that had stained at the knees from caring for him. Her violet eyes were blazing with an anger that she would not otherwise show, an anger for no human, but for a disease that would do this to a proud fighter.

"There will be others, like WindStorm, and VineRose, perhaps others, with this disease. Many dead, many needing care, not just your one Kurama. We'll need to open a new wing for this, epidemics are terrible. I am sure something this catching will have started one."

Without another word to the other two, she strode purposefully from the garden room. Neither would follow, she knew, so she left the world others called Mikai, after the Mikos that ruled it, from another door, one into Vinerose's village.

As soon as she moved through the door, she heard Vinerose, the village Miko, coming for her. Her eyes flashed will irritation at being interrupted.

"Twenty-one sick, four dead, but I cannot put them in Mikai's nearby hospital because I do not run it, and they would not let me in." Now her eyes were angry, but her words were still calm and emotionless.

"I am sorry, Vinerose, that was a terrible mistake. The secretary involved was let go of. I have come to see how many are sick, and to bring them with me." The older Miko nodded with slight pleasure.

"Wingthorn, if we do not stop this epidemic soon, all of the villages nearby will be empty." the older woman told her tiredly. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"

"No, and neither have any of my ancestors. This is bad, we may need to ask the Wolf Stone." The Wolf Stone was a yellow stone carved into the image of a wolf and _supposedly_ would answer one question every hundred years. Skye firmly believed in it, but she knew she was one of the few.

"You! Why won't you get over your superstitions? First you tell me you're a WolfSister, now you're bringing in your Wolf Stone?" Vinerose's voice was heavy with scorn. She tossed graying black hair over her shoulder irritably.

"The Wolf Children race is not a superstition, or a myth. That much, I can prove." Her calm voice was dangerous now, and she could see Vinerose was almost willing to believe her on her word alone, but she had to prove it.

"I'll believe it when I see it." Vinerose told her grimly, sticking to her belief, even when she no longer truly believed it. Skye shot her an exasperated look, and shifted.

_Are you happy now?_ The white wolf said to her, mind to mind, in a voice that seemed to growl angrily. _Are you done being a fool, or need I further demonstrate?_ By the slump of Vinerose's shoulders, Skye decided she could shift back. So she did.

"Satisfied? Good. Help me take these poor ill people to the ward. I'll tell Kinara to prepare the ward." Vinerose gave a curt nod, and then hesitated.

"Wingthorn, it doesn't feel like a normal disease. It feels…I think there is a human hand to it."

"A cultivated disease?" Skye spun to say sharply. Vinerose nodded, her authority returning. Skye's brow furrowed in deep consideration, before sighing. "Lets get these people to a safe place first."

"There was sickness in WindStorm before it began here, and it was about a week ahead too." the older Miko was telling her. "It's not just there either. SummerSong has it too. That's where it started. Half of SummerSong is dead, Wingthorn, and the Summersong herself included. It's called BriarVoice now. The new Miko, Summersong's daughter, is unsure of herself, though. I am worried."

Skye sighed, and closed the door to the new ward, which was already occupied by twenty eight sick, from both WindStorm and VineRose. WindStorm had been terribly unlucky, many had died, the eight here were the only survivors. They would see SummerSong- no, BriarVoice- next.

She had been right, an epidemic had begun.

Skye stopped suddenly, her hand poised just a hair's breadth from Kurama's door. "Did you say Su- BriarVoice is half dead? That village is huge! Hundreds reside there! Resided…"

Vinerose nodded sorrowfully. "It's that bad. There are more than three hundred dead to this disease. Maybe in Ningenkai it would be nothing, but we all know Makai has so few people in comparison. Three-hundred and Sixteen alls told."

316 dead.

Skye swallowed hard, her face pale, and opened Kurama's door, to see Yusuke jump to his feet in relief.

"He's had a seizure. I didn't know what to do, I was hoping you'd come back." She had never seen Yusuke look so lost, not even in the memories she had accidentally, unwillingly, stumbled across.

She checked Kurama's fever, and found it as bad as ever, maybe even a little worse. His lips were chapped from it, and his skin pale, almost gray. She pinched the skin on his hand, and it sank back slowly, so slowly.

He was dehydrated. She picked up a jar of willow bark tea she had already prepared, and tried to make him sip at it, but he just choked. If she couldn't get liquid in him somehow…she didn't want to think about it. But she thought it anyway.

He would die.


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter four nature_

_No matter the problem, nature has the cure._

"Tai?" Kurama opened his eyes, though they seemed to be glued together. Sitting up, he looked around to see that the large garden room he sat in had not changed. The small waterfall flowed smoothly out of the walls, to fall into a pool of fish. Rhododendrons surrounded it, except for a smooth white stone where one might sit.

He stood, and touched the roses, feeling the life and happiness in the beautiful plants that seemed to move their thorns away from his fingers. A yellow rose bud was beginning to open, in that stage that he thought was the most beautiful.

He had decided to try something that morning, though from the feel of things, he had slept through the designated morning. And the next one as well. Skye had told him about a very different kind of energy than Spirit energy. One he may have been using for a long time, but didn't know it.

True, some plants seemed to speak with him, tell him what they wanted, and say hello, but he had never dreamed he had anything to do with it.

Earth energy. What _was_ earth energy?

It was the energy dealing with all things growing, as well as stone and soil. If he could manipulate it – subtly – he could make thing happen. Maybe. He could possibly even make his own garden here, one of rare beauty and strength. He touched the earth energy in the roses in front of him, and his eyes widened.

Were those _plants_ speaking with him in those green, ever changing voices? Greeting him and telling him they were glad of someone to talk to? Were the vines really twining around his arms, not wanting to let go of their new friend?

Was it possible that this was earth energy? He was so surprised that he broke contact, but perhaps because he had an affinity for it, that did not daunt the plants at all, which were encasing him in a living suit of vines.

"It's not earth energy."

Kurama turned, or tried to, which was difficult because of the plants surrounding him. "What?" was all he managed to get past the vines. They were so eager to embrace a new friend, the kind they had not seen in so long, that they forgot he'd be no fun suffocated.

"Behave." She told the plants sternly. The plants meekly returned to their natural places, with difficulty due to the fact that they had grown rapidly at his touch. "Come on, you know you can't keep most of those. Fast growth results in weak areas. I'll just have to take them off later."

"What did you mean…not earth energy?" Kurama asked her, puzzled and bemused, and not just because of his sickness.

"I mean, past your _Oriiji_, or first touching - probably comes from the English word origin - you'll always be able to hear them. You don't need earth energy, they'll just do as you ask because you're their friend. _Ask_, mind you, don't demand, it irritates them. You're an earth adept. It's strange to see someone finding it so late. Not so rare to find adept though. I myself am an air adept, but that really applies to all weather, including rain."

A gust tugged at Kurama's rose-red hair, and she grinned as if to say, _I told you so._ He smiled, amused, and it occurred to her that he _had_ heard her. Odd, an unconditioned mind rarely heard another's comments.

"So, when can I leave this…hospital room? Soon?" he asked without much enthusiasm. Time as a demon must have given him some sense of what was happening in his body. _Time as a demon? How did I know that?_

"The long explanation, or the simple answer?"

"I don't…."

"No." she told him simply, serenely. "You aren't nearly over it yet. You still have the spots, _don't scratch them_, and Windstorm was able to give me a full summery of the illness. It's a long one, this. You've gotten over the mild," she coughed with slight derision, "fever, and usually there's a worse one after that. A cough, too, and the seizures and dehydration that comes with fever."  
Kurama visibly paled, and the plants around him drooped. She could hear them, sad, crying out with green voices. She, too, was an earth adept, but mastery of Earth and Spirit came naturally to a Miko. That was one of the ways a possible future Miko was found in humans. She was an air adept by chance.

"Then, if you survive all that, you're home free." She scowled slightly, without warning. "Now I'm picking up phrases from your mind." The green voices wiggled in distress at her black mood.

"From my mind? I had thought as much. If you want to stop hearing minds, make the winds stop carrying thoughts. The winds listen to you, and you, them. In return for your friendship, they try to carry information to you the best they can. With thoughts. Your mistake was to let them carry whatever they wish."

"It's never too late to let the fever have you." She reminded him lightly, her voice betraying neither amusement nor irritation, both of which she was feeling. When he said nothing, his mind on the plants again, she sighed. "It's broken anyway." She felt his mind question that she had not checked, and she answered half formed thoughts. "You're sweating. Surely you must know that much about the human body, O Wise Demon." she added teasingly.

Skye turned at a ripple, and laughed, a small sound of delight leaving lips pale from exhaustion. "Alut'tum. How fare the silver waters?" The sound of ceremony echoed from the words, and the plants tuned it out, having heard it many times.

"Bright and swift. How fares the growing earth?" the small creature in the water replied, the same sound of ceremony applied. She was no larger than a man's hand, with long sky-blue hair, and tiny, delicate features. She wore no clothing, but perhaps that was ordinary. Clothing was a human concept, and this creature was no such thing. A human concept, but not purely a humane one.

"Strong and green. How fare the burning flames?" Skye replied, her voice finally betraying some emotion, but faint at that. It was the bare echo of eagerness to get on with the greeting ritual.

"Just and versatile. How fare the clever winds?"

"They bear heavy tidings."

"May the Spirit bring lighter news."

"What goes on in your world? I cannot stay past a moment. A man comes. A demon. He is very…full of hatred." Kurama wanted to protest that this elegant little creature, her voice like crystal being struck by a spoon, or of a glass bell, would leave because of one being.

"An epidemic. Don't go, it's just Hiei, Alut'tum. He won't try and chase you away." Skye's voice pleaded with her, saying the things she heard Kurama wish he could say.

The door opened with a whispering sigh, and Alut'tum left, without another word. Perhaps the reason ceremony was so important was because conversation was so short. But if it were gone, more could be said…it was a beautiful ritual anyway, one that gave tribute to the elements.

Kurama turned to see Hiei framed in the doorway, weight shifted to his left, perfectly centered and balanced. He noticed that with a warriors eye, regretting that such a posture was necessary, for it betrayed mistrust.

"You've been killing again, Hiei." Kurama said.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter five key_

_The key to life may lie in death._

"Hiei, you've been killing again." Kurama told him, as if he did not already know. Skye was furious. She picked up screams and sobbing, the blood of innocents on his mind.

"_What was that_?" Skye hissed, white rage in her voice, a kind of dangerous calm that made demon lords flinch, and grown men hide their faces. "Innocent humans, _a child, _wretched fool! What pitiful excuse do you have this time?" She could feel his mind cringe, though she knew he would never show it.

"A child?" Kurama's eyes pleaded with Hiei for it not to be true, that he wouldn't kill those whom he had been defending. That he had not killed a six year old girl while she sat in worship.

_"Why should they live, love, and be happy if Kurama cannot?" _The wind carried the thought to Skye, and it sorrowed her more than crying, or pleading for forgiveness would have. It spoke of years of loneliness and cold.

She twisted the wind, which complained all the while, so that everyone in the room heard the thought, magnified to thrice his voice's volume. Kurama looked as though he had been slapped by his best friend. In a way, he had.

"I thank you to leave my hospital. Find the Priestess Windstorm, she may be able to help you. In any case, give it a day or so before you visit again. I can excuse the slaughter…barely…for your pain, but I will not excuse it again. Give her this message." she added, scribbling on a sheet of paper. "Do not read it, I will know if you have."

"I don't need help." Hiei turned away, and left the room, without the message, and without the comfort he had hoped to find just from being with his friend. Skye pitied him at that moment more than she had anyone else in the past.

"A child?"

Skye turned and studied him, wondering how so much could happen to one person. A terrible past, constant fighting, an illness that might yet kill him, and now this? "I'm sorry." was all she told him.

She felt for fever again, and he coughed, interrupting the process. _Well, he couldn't be fevered again after such a short amount of time._ "You should practice with Earth Energy, and find out just what you can do, okay? I need to check on other patients, will you be alright?" He nodded distantly, and she wondered what he was thinking. _No._ she told the winds, _don't tell me._

As she closed the door behind her, she saw Hiei's retreating back. He turned his head to match her eye for eye.

"Is this what it comes to, Hiei? For years now you've been defending humans alongside humans, and now this? All because one man becomes sick. I won't stop you, not unless I have to, but think about it. Is this really what you want? To be a murderer? It won't help Kurama to end innocent lives, but it may throw him over the edge he already teeters on. Is this what it comes to?"

She turned around, and went in the opposite direction, without giving him a chance to say another word. _Is this what it comes to?_

_"Is this what it comes to, Hiei?" _How dare she assume she had any idea she understood? So she didn't say she understood. She was still interfering in his life! These humans deserved death anyway. They weren't near as wonderful as Kurama, and supposedly he deserved death! So what did that say for the rest of them?

He drew his katana silently, the silver metal whispering gently against the sheath. For how long had it been his only friend? The only one he could trust not to let him down? Too long.

"-is going out with that new foreign exchange boy, Matthew Blackthorn? Are you sure?"  
"Positive, of that kiss was anything to judge by!" Both girls giggled, and he stepped from the shadows he lurked in. Sword drawn, he swept it through the throat of the first girl, transfixing her face into one of terror. The other girl fell to her knees, and fainted.

He felt something strange in his stomach. He _enjoyed_ it. The killing, the power he had over human life. If he had power over it this way, why not the reverse? Why shouldn't be able to keep people from dying? Keep Kurama from dying?

Why?

Before the other girl awoke, he slit her throat, feeling warm blood spill on his hands as he pulled her into the shadow he had hidden in.

It felt so good to felt that blood on his hands. He almost cringed away in horror at the joy he felt in it, but the fact remained that this did something nothing else did. It kept him from having to remember about Kurama…

He sighed. Now he was thinking about it again, and he just wanted it to stop. He shrank into the shadows of the night again in search of new victims.

_A voice was whispering in Kurama's ears, and he couldn't run. He was chained to the ground, and the ground beneath him was shaking and falling away. Just a little bit more, and he would be able to get away._

_He had to get somewhere, that much he knew more than anything else. He had to meet the person who was whispering to him, and tell them something. _

_"Slice the flesh and spill the blood. Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills. Kills. Kill the innocent to still the mind. Kill the mind. The mind that speaks and runs in horror. End the horror, slice the flesh and spill the blood. Blood so red, so sweet so warm…." _

_The sick words speaking to him made him retch, to find he had nothing left. The voice repeated itself. He had to tell it something, it was vital!_

_The chains dissolved, and he fought the quaking ground beneath him for balance. He tried to stand, only to find that the ground he sought to stand on was falling away from his feet, to rise again when he struggled for a new balance._

_Finally he stood, finding his balance easy to keep despite the bucking ground beneath. He looked around, and heard the words beginning again, new ones. _

_"Blood that runs in my veins. Still the veins and find the key. Key to life undisturbed. Blood that is the key. Blood that spills so I can breath. Breath the chains, break the chains. Flesh that's torn to break the chains, so nice to tear the flesh. Rip the skin and spill the blood. Blood to break the chains. Blood that runs in my veins. Still the veins and find the key…"_

_"BLOOD SO RED, SO SWEET, SO WARM. WARM AS THE BEATING HEART THAT STILLS. KILLS! KILL THE INNOCENT TO STILL THE MIND! KILL THE MIND!"_

_Hiei!_

"Hiei!" Kurama's breath exploded from his chest as he woke in cold sweat. Well, at least it meant he wasn't fevered, right?

But that voice! He shuddered. _Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills._

_Hiei, what's happening to you?_


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter six Change_

_There will always be room for change._

"Kurama, how are you feeling?" The cold, unemotional voice that was Hiei's hurt him more than usual. There was blood on Hiei's hands, where it had stuck on the edges of the nail bed. It was not his own.

"Hiei, I'm fine, but you…what's happening to you?" Kurama's soft, agonized voice pleaded with him not to follow that path.

"I'm waking up."

A knife twisted in Kurama's heart, the harsh words of his best friend echoing in his mind. "What do you mean?" he asked, his hoarse voice sounding like a half-sob. "What are you doing?"

"The only key to life is in death, and I'll find no peace in the former." _Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills. _

"Don't say that, Hiei. You're scaring me." He closed his eyes while he spoke in quiet, painful tones. "Please, don't say that. I heard…last night…" His voice trailed off. He was tired, and in more ways than one. He would rather die than see Hiei transformed back into the heartless, twisted demon he was turning into.

"I killed before the sickness, and we were still friends, still close. Why is that changing now?" Hiei showed no emotion as he spoke, and it hurt worse than the words he spoke, the unspoken belief that Kurama no longer cared about him.

"It isn't changing Hiei, you are. You are changing into something I had hoped never to see from you again. You killed again last night, young victims under the age of eighteen. You made blood pour down the chapel steps. Don't become that kind of person." Tears came now, a trickle that he couldn't stop, for all his control.

"That has nothing to do with-" Hiei started to say, then stopped, as Kurama closed his eyes tightly, a last pair of tears squeezing out.

"It does. You're becoming a monster, though you had already redeemed yourself in your service. Now what will happen? You're turning into the kind of person Koenma had us hunt down! Is that what you want, to be hunted like an animal by your comrades?" His breath caught in his throat, he could not go on.

"You would hunt me?"  
"Hiei…"  
"That's fine. Save your soul." Hiei snapped, and slammed the door behind him, trying very hard not to smash it to dust.

Kurama stared at the door as though it were a viper, swaying before attack. He refused to allow the tears he could feel coming spill from his eyes. They would only show weakness, not solve anything.

_Hiei! You were the one I trusted most in the world! You were closer than a best friend, you were my brother, and I loved you as such. What is happening to you?_

"He is losing his way." A musical voice, like wind chimes, reached his ears from the direction of the small pool. Kurama turned gracefully to see Alut'tum sitting there on the water, as if it were a solid seat.

"Alut'tum. How fare the silver waters?"

"Bright and swift. How fares the growing earth?"

"Strong and green. How fare the burning flames?"

"Just and versatile. How fare the clever winds?"

"They bear heavy tidings."

"May the Spirit bring lighter news. You have a good memory, fox." Alut'tum said, and then stood, looking burdened by terrible news.

"Thank you. You…were right about Hiei." Kurama, weakened terribly by the illness and his distress, decided not to stand. Besides, Alut'tum was so small, that would hardly be wise.

"Tell me about Hiei. What is wrong?" Alut'tum's lilting voice soothed him, and he felt he could trust her with the truth.

"He…he's killing innocent humans. He murdered all those who were worshiping in a church, priest and children included, simply for the…joy…of killing. The path he is treading will get him killed himself. Koenma – I serve him as a spirit detective – has us track down and kill demons who do that in Ningenkai. I'm afraid, terribly afraid, that that will be my next assignment. I do not doubt that if it goes to Yusuke, Hiei will be spared no mercy. "

"Yusuke is heartless then?" Alut'tum pursed her lips, folding her arms in blatant disapproval.

"No. He just thinks of Hiei as a partner, but will not give up his soul for a mere partner. What news do you bear?"

"The epidemic has a death rate of... I believe 63 percent. I image Skye is noticing that already." Kurama paled. Sixty three percent! That meant he himself might die! "I have to go. May the sun always shine on your land."

"And on your waters as well." he replied distantly. A knock sounded at his door. _Now what? Maybe that's why Alut'tum left. I hope not, I like her._ "Come in." he called.

The face of a young girl, unsure of herself, appeared in the doorway. "Is this Kurama's room?" she asked quietly.

"Yes, I am Kurama."

"I'm supposed to be checking your temperature. I'm Silverbough." Silverbough informed her crisply. Or tried to, her voice wavered. Perhaps he was her first real experience with an epidemic, she was definitely unsure of herself.

"Skye had checked already. I assume I'm fine, she didn't say anything." _I'm not fine! Look what's happening to Hiei! _ Silverbough pursed her lips.

"I would have thought Lady Wingthorn would have told me." _Lady Wingthorn? Of course, that's her Miko name._

"Can't anyone just call me Skye? One would think that would be easier." Skye's serene, slightly amused voice came from behind Silverbough, who started stammering something about honor, and privileges. "Spare me, Silverbough. What's his temperature?"

Silverbough sighed. "I'm told you just checked." She informed her curtly. When Skye raised an eyebrow and waited for the young Miko to do as she was told – young being used loosely, Skye was only about fourteen herself -, Which she did, grudgingly.

"Ninety-nine point eight."

"The fever is picking up again. Tell me, _apprentice_ Silverbough, what causes a fever?" Skye asked her. _Apprentice! So she's still learning. But how did Skye get to be a Miko so young? Does it matter? No._

"Fever is the body's attempt to…boil out the illness. It tries to make the body so hot that the germ cells die, while making the person feel cold so they try to warm up further." she recited in a monotone, defeated.

"Good. Now go check the patients in the new ward. Make sure only to give the allotted herbs, in the right amount, if the slate says it's time." Apprentice Silverbough lowered her head, flushed with embarrassment, and left to do as she was told.

"Take this Willow bark tea, and you are not given a fresh dose at these times," she scribbled a list of times and dosage on a slate, and handed it to him, "Tell the yellow rose to call for me, and I'll come. You're in for a rough ride."

She left, leaving Kurama alone, and wishing he had something to occupy his time. He kept remembering the words whispered in a dream, words he knew came from Hiei, in some twisted, demented way.

_Blood so red, so sweet so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills._

_Hiei, what have you done?_


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter seven home_

_There will always be a way home._

_Skye sat on the water, which rose and carried her up. The wind caressed her softly, and blew her hair back. It must have been a nuisance having such long hair, always in her face. Kurama turned to look behind him at a noise, and blinked._

_The gentle scene was gone, replaces by mist and trees so twisted they seemed to be doubled over in unspeakable agony. Blood ran from many deep gashes in them, and dull, pitted axes dotted the ground._

_Plants rose up around his knees, begging him to help them, heal them, take them away from this place._

_"I am sorry, but I must find…"_

_"Kill the men, men to betray. Kill the women, who are betrayed. Kill the children, wretched creatures set to grow. Grow to hate. Grow to glow with hatred. Glow with blood and hatred. Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills. Kills. Kill the heart who's beating stills. Kill the heart and save the soul. Soul that runs, and runs and runs. Kill for fun, kill for fun. Kill to end the heart. End the heart that speaks to me. Speaks to me with words of glee. Unholy glee, so kill the heart. Kill the heart and end me."_

_Hiei, where are you?_

_"Hiei, come out! Look where this has taken you! Do you see this place? Come out, end this!"_

_"Kill the heart and save the soul. Soul that runs, and runs and run. Kill for fun, kill for fun. Kill to end the heart. End the heart that speaks to me. Speaks to me with words of glee. Unholy glee, so kill the heart. Kill the heart and end me."_

_"Hiei, please, listen to me! This is sick, do you hear yourself? Stop this, this isn't you!"_

_"END THE HEART THAT SPEAKS TO ME. SPEAKS TO ME WITH WORDS OF GLEE. UNHOLY GLEE, SO KILL THE HEART! KILL THE HEART AND END ME!"_

_"Listen to me…"_

_But no one was listening._

"LISTEN TO ME!" Kurama shouted, thrashing in his sheets, still feeling the chains that had descended at the end of the dream. But they were just sheets. Just bits of cloth, wet with sweat.

He was feverish, he should not be sweating.

Unless it had broken?

But he could still feel the fever waging war with the Pox, shook his head to clear the cobwebs of sleep, if you could call that sleep. Sleep, but not rest, never rest. He was so tired.

"Are you alright?" Hiei! He was here, and he would be able to speak with Kurama and sort it all out. But Kurama didn't know how to begin describing the terror, the words spoken with such lack of feeling that it would make most lost the contents of their stomachs.

"You were speaking. It was terrible, it wasn't you, but it was your voice. _Blood so red, so sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills…._ But how could that be you? You've been known to be cold, but that wasn't cold, it was monstrous…" Hiei did not try to tell him he was right, that that wasn't him, and it terrified his feverish mind.

"Kurama, things are changing." No! That wasn't what he was supposed to say! Please, make this be part of the dream. Make him not be changing. Make things be the way they should be.

"No, don't say that. Please, don't, listen to me! I'll go to Hell with you, if that's what it takes, but don't send us both there if you can help it. Koenma allowed you to redeem yourself, you can cleanse this too. If you refuse to listen… if Yusuke and I are told to track you down…I'll stand with you, against Yusuke and all I stand for, if you force me to. But I won't lose you." The last words were said so fiercely that that alone made Hiei want to reconsider his path.

But it was too late for that.

Too late to save anyone by stopping and leaving his heart bare, to be torn.

"It's not too late. You can still turn back and save yourself, can still save the humans who you would have killed. They all have friends and family who will want to die themselves, it would hurt so terribly. Do any of them deserve to live less than me?"

"Yes, all of them put together deserve less." Hiei snapped icily. Kurama was stunned, but not so much as Hiei. _What am I doing? I never snap at Kurama, he saved me from that awful…nothingness…that void I created for myself, he's been my best friend for how long now? And I'm snapping at him? We always got along!_

"I didn't mean that, fox." he tried to say. But the agonized, sorrowing look on Kurama's face did not fade.

"Yes," he said softly, "You did."

They held each other's gaze for a moment, and then held each other close, knowing there was nothing more precious to either of them than each other. They were closer than brother's even, they shared a soul. And Hiei was breaking Kurama's heart.

"There is always a way back home, Hiei. Please." Kurama told him, trying not to let the tears escape him. For the first time in his entire life, as Youko or Ningen, he thought he saw a tear in Hiei's eyes. But perhaps it was a trick of the moonlight playing off the pool of water, for when he looked close, it was gone.

"I'll stop, I'll change, if that's what you really want." Hiei said finally.

A small noise came from the pool, when Kurama looked, Alut'tum was sitting there. She had finally decided to show herself to the demon she had described as full of hate.

"Alut'tum. How fare the silver waters?"

"Bright and swift. How fares the growing earth?"

"Strong and green. How fare the burning flames?"

"Just and versatile. How fare the clever winds?"

"They bear lighter news."

"May the Spirit grant us further joy."

"Hiei, this is Alut'tum, a friend." Kurama turned to Hiei, and saw his face was black with rage.

"She's a spy of Koenma's! She's here to track me down! You brought her here. Traitor. You brought her so Koenma's agents could hunt me like an animal. Always a way back home," he spat, "A way home to hell!"

"Hiei, that isn't true." Kurama whispered, horrified. How could Hiei ever, ever think that he could bring someone to kill him? After all they'd been through together? He wasn't sure how long they had been closer than brothers, but he knew it was a century or more.

"_Liar!_ I trusted you!"

"Hiei, please, Alut'tum doesn't have anything to do with Koenma, I don't even think she belongs to Makai! Or Reikai, or Ningenkai! Have I ever lied to you? Ever?" Kurama pleaded with him not to speak like this. He had never doubted Hiei's trust in him, yet the sight of Alut'tum had sparked something in the demon.

"You have now. A friend of Skye's? And who is Skye Wingthorn anyway? Some whore from off the streets that Yusuke found to 'help'? I wonder, why hasn't she asked to be paid? Has she already been paid, not in money? I bet that's what she works for. How do I know she isn't poisoning you?"

"Skye wouldn't do that, and you know it."

"I don't know it, all I know is that she's trying to turn you away from me."

"Hiei, don't say things like that. It isn't true."

"How do I know truth even exists anymore?"

Hiei closed the door behind him when he left, and Kurama felt as though he had said goodbye, and forever this time.


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm baaaaack! Even though no one is reveiwing (which is very rude to the author, reading but not reveiwing) I'm going to upload a few more chapters now. There won't be a Wingthorn: Come what may, it turned out too short, so I added it on to A Miko's Heart, The next one in the series is going to be Skye's Legacy. sniffle Can you guess what that means? No! Don't! Save it for when you read it._

_Rose here, signing out. _

_Chapter eight Past_

_Fury does not change what is already past._

Hiei walked away from the bloody scene behind him, his fury for Kurama gone. He still couldn't believe it, but there was nothing he could do about it, was there? _He betrayed me, he brought Koenma's people to hunt me._

_Or did he, he said that the little blue girl had nothing to do with Koenma._ He paused, hand on the hilt of his Katana. A car was approaching him, and he was too close, far to close to the dead men. Coming from that direction as well.

"You are under arrest." He heard from behind him, and from in front of him. He knew that the human police were surrounding him. He drew his Katana, then, and prepared to fight his way out. He felt as small bubble of glee at that, and knew he shouldn't. But that didn't keep him from thinking it.

"You think waving that sword around will make us let you go?" one of them barked, laughing shortly.

"_Katana._" Hiei muttered, and grinned with malice. He jumped forward, sweeping the katana through the speaking officer's throat. He slit another officer's throat as well, before they went into action, threatening to shoot.

"Hn. You humans are so pathetic." he sneered, killing one last officer on the way out. Just his little way of making sure they remembered him.

"Kurama." A voice came from the door that was now, once again, ajar, distracting him from his earth energy practice. When he nodded to acknowledge Lord Koenma's presence, in his teenage form, Koenma nodded back.

"I have another assignment for you, for when you are feeling better." Kurama's mouth went dry, and if Koenma saw him pale, he showed no sign of it. "It's bad business, this, but one of the Spirit Detectives has, well, changed his mind about where he stands. You know the drill."

"Hiei." He whispered, unable to speak any louder. Koenma nodded, studying him with pity. Kurama was getting really, really sick of pity.

"He's been arrested by the humans, in a rare burst of brilliance."

"It's not like Hiei to allow himself to be caught." Kurama noted tiredly. He knew now what his assignment was, and had to tell Koenma he wouldn't do it.

"No, it's not. He killed the officers instead. Your assignment is to bring down the dangerous murderer. No human officers would be able to do it." Koenma sighed, seeing the problem in asking someone to kill a best friend.

"I…can't."

"That's what I thought you would say. I'll put it down to being sick, but this is the final assignment to make up for all the harm you did as a demon bandit. When you get better, do the assignment. Don't cross me, you will regret it if you do." Without a word of farewell, he left, and Kurama let him go.

He was lonely, and that was probably the real problem. Sick and bedridden, he was all alone. Tai had died of the Pox two days past, and Kurama missed him terribly. Hiei…_Hiei, why would you think I'd ever, ever betray you?_ Alut'tum wouldn't even come back, he was sure. Not after that.

The only one he had left was Skye, never mind that he was dreaming about her now. He sighed, fervently hoping that this was all a fever dream, for he knew how vivid those could be. He lay down on his low cot, and went to sleep, tossing and turning in the throes of another dream.

_He was well, entirely well. No more rash from the pox, no more fever, nothing. All was better. It must have been a dream then, but it was so vivid. He sat up, and looked around, seeing only the place where they had stopped for the night._

_"Hiei? Are you alright?" he called, afraid for his friend, and hoping he could still count him as one. He stood shakily, sweating in apprehension, and touched Hiei's shoulder where he slept. One touch should have been enough to wake the wary fighter, normally he knew it would have been._

He shook Hiei again, desperation welling up. "Hiei, please, get up." he pleaded. "Don't leave me here. I promised…" He turned Hiei over, and nearly cried when he saw his friend was still breathing.

_He was covered with the Pox, and his breath rattled horribly in his throat. Hiei's forehead was burning when Kurama checked it, and he knew his friend was in trouble. It hadn't been a dream! Maybe it had been a foretelling? Possibly._

_He rolled Yusuke over, and cringed when he saw the Pox waging war against him as well. Keiko! Keiko was traveling with them too, she was a woman, she would know what to do!_

_He tapped her on the shoulder, then tried to shake he awake. She was so covered with blanket, she might as well be in a chrysalis. He moved the blanket, and closed his eyes in pain when he saw the disease in her._

_He got up, and began to run, run to find a village, with a Miko. Maybe even one called Wingthorn, Vinerose, or Windstorm. Silverbough, even, would be enough. He had to see someone familiar!_

_He literally ran, then, into a woman clothed in Miko garments. He looked up, almost afraid to see the skin, afraid it would be marked and scarred by the Pox. It wasn't, it was Silverbough. _

_"Come." she rasped, her voice sounding dry and weary, not even entirely alive. She led him back to the camp sight, where he checked on Hiei._

_He was dead._

_Kurama fell to his knees then, his tears watering the ground that craved moisture so. "No, please, not Hiei." he cried._

_Hiei danced around him then, not his body, but his spirit. Where was Botan to take him to the Spirit World? Why wasn't she here to guide him to Reikai? _

_"…So sweet, so warm. Warm as the beating heart that stills." The voice was louder this time, louder than ever before, now that it was coming from a spirit's throat. His heart pounding, Kurama moved the cloth to take one last look at his best friend._

_It wasn't Hiei._

_It was Skye. And now the spirit dancing around him wasn't Hiei either, not the one he had befriended. It was a green demon, covered in eyes and radiating malice. It was Hiei, and he was back to the way he had been before he met Kurama._

_"BLOOD SO RED, SO SWEET, SO WARM! WARM AS THE BEATING HEART THAT STILLS! KILLS! KILL THE HEART TO STILL THE MIND! KILL THE INNOCENT TO KILL THE HEART! KILL THE HEART, AND BE FREE AT LAST!" Hiei was screaming, pounding on his back to make him listen._

_"What have you done, Hiei?" Kurama cried, falling to the ground, and silently weeping with anguish. _

_"**WHY?**_" _It wasn't his voice, it wasn't the voice of any human or demon. It was warped and thunderous. It was the voice of a great king whose empire was destroyed, the voice of a woman who's child is murdered. The scream of a dog, kicked and torn, lying in the gutter alone. It was a sound of betrayal and eternal agony, one that echoed long after it stopped speaking. It screamed in his mind, wiping out all happy thoughts in it's flood of sorrow._

_It stayed, even when he fell to the ground, wishing the disease would take him too._


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter nine love_

_There is no greater sign of love than to give up one's life for a friend._

It was raining. Hiei sat – alone – in a corner in an alley, kept company by only other rootless people, people without a home, friends, or family. He was one of them now, and his heart wept bitterly.

They had questioned him at first, sensing that he was not like them, was alone because of his own fault, and could be nothing more than that without outside intervention.

_"What's your story?" A drunken man had asked him, scowling heavily at his shortness, his headband, and his sword. He noticed that Hiei wore more than just rags, and a gleam came into his eyes._

_Hiei didn't say a word, wasn't in the mood to be robbed, or to kill, even. He simply slid the sword an inch out of it's sheath, without looking up. The man had backed away. Even in his drunken stupor, he realized he might be in danger._

_No one had bothered him after that._

He bit his lip, and felt blood in his mouth. He closed his eyes briefly, wishing that the man had killed him, rather than just run away. _Why couldn't you kill me! Why did you leave me here!_

Hiei heard the sound of garbage being kicked aside as someone new entered the alley. His head was down, he didn't see anything, but from the walk, he knew that the person wasn't accustomed to this place.

If Koenma's people had found him, to make him pay for the murders, he just hoped they would make it fast. Not painless, though, never painless. Pain served to disconnect him from all this, for a time.

Or maybe he would fight back. Yes, fighting back was probably the most likely way to end it. They wouldn't just imprison him if he tried to kill them for it, they would kill first and think later.

That, he did not question. It was the way he lived. He understood the motives and thinking of a predator, of one always hunted by life, and preying on the weak. For a time he had found a way that was better.

But there was no way back home now, not without Kurama. Even if he was still alive, and would survive the illness, less than a 40 chance, how could he ever want to befriend Hiei, ever again?

Forever alone.

It was his fault too. He had condemned himself. If he had restrained the nature of a demon, the part that told him to kill first, and ask questions later, he would still have a reason to live.

"Have you come to kill me?" he asked, his voice hoarse from unshed tears. "Get on with it." He looked up, without moving his head, and saw the feet of Lord Koenma himself.

"He's no danger. Not anymore." Koenma murmured to the horned blue demon that was always by his side – and usually being yelled at. The rain began to fell harder, as Koenma turned and left, leaving one who was once one of his best workers behind.

His fault again, always his fault. He lowered his head even further, laying it on his knees, not caring how wet he was getting, hoping pneumonia would come and take him. Anything.

He probably would have ended it there himself. He had the means, his katana was very sharp, but he couldn't summon the energy to move. What was the point?  
He welcomed death if it would take him on it's own, but he did not want to move and bring it himself. The lethargy that consumed him added to his depression. He closed his eyes tighter, and forced himself not to cry.

He would not cry, not ever. Not while he was alive. Maybe when he transcended the worlds and found himself finally at rest, the tears he had held all his life would flow. He could rest, completely unburdened, drifting into a dreamless sleep.

A woman nursing a tiny baby approached him. His hand went to his katana again, and he waited to see what she wanted. Without a word, she offered a blanket. He shook his head.

The rain was soothing in it's icy embrace.

More footsteps. He had come to be alone! Why was so much happening? He wondered if maybe he should get up. There was too much going on here, too much life. He didn't want life, he wanted solitude and rest.

Hiei decided against getting up, deciding it was too much effort. Footsteps stopped right before him, and he saw unfamiliar boots, rain boots. The ankles above the boots swayed, as though the whole body was having a hard time staying up.

He finally looked up, and saw someone he knew well. It was Kurama! But it couldn't be, Kurama was sick in bed, in…Mikai.

"Why this?" he murmured, tears breaking through his shattered will. "Hallucinations, now? Am I going mad?" He wondered if the insane wondered if they were insane.

No, insane people acted like superman, like kings. They lived in their own little world. They drooled and wet the bed. Maybe he wasn't mad, he was just sick. Good, that meant rest was coming.

He had lived too long, far too long. The demon lifespan wasn't a gift, but a curse. He was tired, so tired, he didn't want to be here anymore.

"Hiei?" the voice asked in a voice that was more like a breath of wind than words. _No! God, no! What did I do to deserve this? No, I know exactly what I did. I gave away my heart, and in the end, was given it back, battered and torn. _

Hiei couldn't take it, he stood, and tore down the alleyway, searching trying to find somewhere, anywhere that he could escape.

Finally he collapsed in a new alley, one without homeless. He was alone, finally. Misery hates company. He shook with cold, and hatred, and anguish. There was nothing left to do but leave, that he was sure.

His run had given him back his energy. He drew his sword.

Kurama stood in the pouring rain, still sick and fevered, before Hiei. Hiei did not even look up, and he saw that he had not bothered to cover himself from the rain.

Hiei was so limp, he wondered if he was even alive anymore. Had he…killed himself? Hiei tensed, drawing himself even further in. Kurama heard him mutter something.

"Hallucinations now, am I going mad?" he asked himself, drawing himself into a tight ball, all limpness now gone. Kurama saw him reach for his katana. _He thinks he's gone insane, thinks he's seeing things!_

He stood, so suddenly that Kurama started, and ran all out away from the alley, in a motion a normal human would not even see. But he had once been a demon, and he did see it, and he followed.

Hiei collapsed in an alley, and Kurama approached slowly, feeling terribly ill. He could see black around the edges of his vision, and knew he was going to faint. He saw, just barely, Hiei draw his sword, and bring it to his own neck.

"Hiei, don't!" he cried out, and fell unconscious.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter ten sorry_

_No matter how many times you say Sorry, it will not fix anything._

_He was chained in a gray fuzz that was more terrifying in it's absolute nothingness than the forest of bleeding trees had been. His chains were not iron, but…he couldn't see them at all, what were they?_

_There was Hiei! Something to ground him in this field where he couldn't tell in he upright or upside down, lying flat, or vertical. He couldn't tell if the world around him was holding still. When he opened his mouth to call to Hiei, no sound escaped him._

_There was just the two of them in this strange place, nothing less, nothing more. He looked closer at Hiei, and recoiled in despair that left him gasping and sobbing, blood dripping from his face, where two cuts had appeared, an X. _

_Hiei was dead, his throat had been slit. Kurama wondered if it had hurt, then gasped again as the cuts on his cheek began to spread._

_They were alive! The crawled, growing, like gaping red veins, unable to contain their crimson liquid. The wounds spread, covering his face like veins on a leaf. They moved down to his neck, and he felt dizzy from loss of blood._

_His entire body was red with blood welling from a million wounds._

And he smiled, for now he could follow Hiei, just as he had promised. A single tear, not water but blood, ran down his cheek.

Kurama rolled over, awake, but not wishing to see what he was sure would be the Reikai. He blinked his eyes, opening them with resignation to see, not a new world, but his room.

"Hhh…" He tried to speak, but his mouth was so dry, no real word escaped it. He sat up, reaching for the cup of willow bark tea by his bed. His head was pounding, which meant the last dose had worn off.

"What a terrible dream." he muttered. Someone scrambled to their feet in a hurry, rushing to his side. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see anyone. He remembered, suddenly, what had happened the last night.

"Hiei, no…" He curled up on the bed, as a tear fell from his eyes, squeezed shut. The someone from the corner tapped his shoulder, without a word. He opened his eyes, and unclenched his body, wincing at the bruises he had somehow acquired. He was too sick to care about showing weakness.

"You're okay!" It wasn't Skye's voice, or Silverbough's. He raised his head, hardly daring to believe that it might be true. Hiei, he was alive! He was okay!

"You're alive. Oh, god, I thought you…" he couldn't finish the sentence, not wanting to say the words he knew were there. _Died._ Hiei gently held him, unsure of what to do. He didn't normally show affection.

"What-" Hiei clenched his teeth, trying to contain himself, then continued in a carefully calm voice, that said he was very angry indeed. "What the… what were you doing out looking for me so sick. In the rain. Explain."

"It's a good thing I did, or you might not be here. I might ask the same. I saw you with that sword…what were you thinking?" He sighed heavily. "Don't tell me, I don't want to know."

Hiei gently set him down on the bed, where he immediately fell asleep. If he was sicker than usual because he had gone searching in the rain…That would be bad. He didn't know what he would do if Kurama died…probably die himself.

The two had supported each other when there was nothing left. Never before had they fought…as friends anyway. When they first met, there was plenty of fighting. But they had been through so much together.

It was like a stone arch, with the keystone as their friendship. Without, both sides would crumble and fall, yet if the arch suddenly lost a side, they keystone would not keep the other side standing.

Footsteps echoed down the hall, tiled with large, flat stones. A woman came down, carrying a tray. She wore the yellow robes of an apprentice, and he stepped in her path to halt her.

"Where is Wingthorn?" he snapped icily.

"In ward three. But… be careful. That ward is for madmen, literally. Wingthorn is the only one who is willing to tend them. Those are the ones who went insane from their own experiments, or from…severe trauma."

Without waiting for him to reply, she resumed her brisk walk.

He pushed open the doors of the nearest ward, and walked down the hallway. He found the common room – odd as it's presence might be – and saw men and woman standing idly there, as well as Wingthorn herself.

"Wingthorn." he barked coldly. "Kurama needs help." Just because the woman was helping Kurama did not mean he had to get to know her. Many people had helped _him_ in the past, and not all even survived it. Let alone making a friend out of it.

"And why didn't you ask an apprentice, or someone, anyone other than me?" she demanded. "I am the head of this hospital, _and_ the only one who will tend these poor people." Hiei waited, impatient.

Wingthorn sighed in exasperation. "Yes, I am coming." She murmured something to the woman who was clutching her robes in terror at the sight of Hiei.

"Who was that woman, why was she so afraid of me?" he asked with curiosity as they walked.

"Oh, don't you know?" she asked with a nasty curl to her lip. She was beginning to hate him, he could tell. "For her own safety I'll not tell you her name. She went mad when she saw her whole family murdered in the chapel. And who, do you know, murdered them?" Her cold, sharp words cut him, and she moved faster so as to be away from him.

"I'm sorry." He said the words with some difficulty, he was not used to apologizing. He rarely regretted anything he did, but he definitely regretted this. She whirled sharply to face him, and stuck a finger in his face.

"Sorry? Sorry? Will _sorry_ bring any one of those people back from Reikai? Will _sorry_ save that woman from her madness? Tell me, will_ sorry _clean the blood off of the steps of that holy place? Will it console the friends of those children, who will be just now learning that their schoolmates will never, ever come back? Tell me, can it save your soul? I hope it can make you run fast, because when Koenma discovers you are still alive, you'll need to run harder than ever before.

"Children, Hiei, young ones just barely starting out in this world, and you have already sent them to the next. What gives you the right to do that? Adults would be bad enough, but that woman lost her three little girls that night, right before her eyes. And her husband, brother, and parents. All while she hid in terror beneath the pews. Will sorry make any of that, any of it better?"

By the time she had stopped her speech, she was no longer angry, no longer pointing that finger, the one he had stared at as though it were a gun, in his face. Instead, she was on her knees, weeping. For not only those he had killed, but for him as well, he knew.

Why would anyone ever cry for him?


	11. Chapter 11

_The story never ends, even if the characters are no more._

Chapter eleven Story

They found him curled up in a tight ball. He was sweating hard, and unconscious, with blood trickling from his lower lip where he had bitten through. Kurama's expression was one of pain.

A knot formed in Hiei's throat. _Why this? Is Kurama dying? _He wiped the blood from Kurama's face, as gently as one would with a child. Kurama stirred, just a little bit, just enough to let him know he was alive.

"His fever is broken. I can heal him now." Skye said gently. She could hear fury mounting in his mind, and was suddenly, horribly, reminded that he was a murderer.

"Why didn't you do that earlier?" he hissed with a terrible not of hatred growing in his voice. "Why didn't you help him earlier and save all that pain and suffering? Do you know that he almost died, and now has orders to kill me, all because you didn't heal him in the first place?"

"Do you know," she said coldly, "That if I had done that, all I would have done is accelerate time on his body? Do you know what would have happened if I did that? The fever would suck him dry, leaving you with nothing more than a corpse."

Hiei swallowed hard. He had not thought of that, though now that he did, the thought made him cringe. She was the only one he had ever met that he was slightly afraid of. Slightly.

Skye barked out a laugh. "You'd deserve that. Not Kurama, but you would. After all, how many people have you left with only a corpse? A hundred? More than that? Just in the past week. Pathetic, that you have that little control. Children just beginning their priestess training have more than you do." His eyes flashed angrily.

"Oh please, don't give me that look. Do you really think I am afraid of you?" her serene voice said, sweetened in the way that even Hiei knew meant fury and deception. Hn.

"I think you should be."

"_Silencio, hombre insensado_." she chided. Hiei suppressed an urge to glare at her. He had to admit, he had met his match in this one. He tried not to think it, knowing she would hear, but couldn't prevent it. A slight smile curving her lips served to prove his point.

"Spanish. A little rough around the edges, but at least you have the idea. I don't appreciate the insult, mind. Just the fact you bothered to learn some of the language." he rambled, worried about Kurama and trying not to show it.

"What's wrong with my Spanish?" she snapped, sweat falling from her brow as she healed Kurama.

"Well, your accent is atrocious, for one." he pointed out helpfully. She glared at him as if to say _Is that all?_ He just gave her a small smile, hardly even there. But that was enough to see that the demon did not smile easily. "For another, I am not a man, I'm a demon."

"I don't care if you're a patch of moss."

She checked his rash, now shrunken back to his shoulder, and pursed her lips, seeing a wound she had missed before. "So now we know how the disease is carried. This wound came from an animal, possibly one being hunted. No, one competing for prey. This came from a wolf."

The gash was red around the edges and hot to the touch.

"All this time we have only been getting half the problem!" she sighed in exasperation. Would troubles never cease? "Infected, I'll bet. She sighed again. "Hiei, you should go. I may not like you, but I'll give you this chance. Koenma knows by now you're alive, he's probably back to the hunt. If you see Yusuke, I advise you avoid him." He moved his head slowly from the left to the right, and back.

"I'm not leaving until I see that Kurama is okay." he told her shortly. "I can't risk anything happening to him."

She rolled her eyes at the folly of men, but put it down to distress. _He's been through a lot. He killed so many, but I truly think he regrets it now. He might not do it again because of that. I hope not, he's a spirited one. It would be a shame to see him killed. Not to mention what that would do to his colleagues, now forced to murder their friend._

Skye tied a knot in the bandage around his arm, then growled with exasperation, showing her WolfSister nature in a flash of irritation. She twitched her now wolf ears, finally noticed that she had shifted to wolf.

"So, you really are a WolfSister." Hiei noted softly. "I had thought they died out." His eyes took on a cast of sorrow, though he otherwise hid it perfectly. She listened to the thoughts the wind brought to her, and found a name.

_Reyanina. Reya. Why did you have to follow so many of your clan to the next world? It isn't fair that you had to go. And what a way to go. Turned to stone._ Her eyes widened in surprise, a little more yellow showing.

Reyanina, Reya for short. She had died in a legendary way, turned to stone. She still stood next to the Wolf Stone, forever frozen in that moment in time. Eternity has captured the stone flowers in her hair, even, and preserved them, keeping them from being worn away.

She had been the Miko for the generation, and her entire clan lay behind her, protected from the waiting demons only by a barrier. She had held the demons off for a full day without rest, and finally her Spirit energy failed.

In desperation, she drew on the life force within her instead, the thing that kept her alive. Trying to save all of her family, she drew more and more until she ceased to live at all, and became stone. The petrified image of her was exactly the same as it had been so many years ago.

The demons made a huge kill that night, slaughtering Reya's entire family. _That isn't the way a story should go. There was no happy ending, no lesson, even her family was murdered. It was all for naught. _

_But a fairy tale story, such as this one seemed to be, doesn't guarantee a happy ending. If the writer dies mid-story, they grow and live on forever, spinning wildly out of control. Reya died, and now her story, the story of demon versus Miko lives on for all of eternity. _

"You loved her." Skye said simply, laying a hand on Hiei's shoulder in consolation. "My great-granddam, Reyanina, you knew her didn't you?" Hiei stiffened.

"Stay out of my mind." he said quietly, coldly.

"I cannot help what tidings the winds bear to me." She told him, just as quietly. "But if Reya Moonstone loved you, then you were blessed with an honor. Her chosen Miko name was Wolfcrystal, but when her entire family was murdered, she was renamed in honor of her legendary struggle.

"The story she spun in the last, when she was struggling to keep the demons away from the ones she loved, lives on for all eternity, demon against Miko, in all of the Miko's in Makai. Because she died mid telling, we will never be free of the story that has gone out of control. Because of that, my kind is destined to war against yours."


	12. Chapter 12

_Who you used to be has little to do with who you are._

_Chapter twelve Being_

Kurama came out of the healing early. Skye sensed something wrong, something strange about his breathing. She entered his mind, using it to try and see what was wrong, but all she could tell was that something wasn't as it should be.

"Hiei, there's something strange with his breathing…" Kurama's breath bubbled away and did not return. "Hiei! I'm going to connect my mind to yours, anchor yourself here." He hesitated. "Now!" she snapped.

Kurama was dying.

She found his mind, and connected to it, following his spirit as it fell to Reikai. He had no guide. When a spirit had a lot to make up for, Botan or one of her colleagues came to tell it if, and how, a spirit could redeem itself.

But Kurama had already done so, he was allowed to go unchallenged into the Spirit World. Skye, connected to his mind, was able to follow him, and found him in a garden, sleeping.

She shook him, waking him, and he stood quickly and looked around. Reikai was so….bright. So lacking any sense of hopelessness, except for the desperation in Skye.

"You have to come with me." she said serenely, seeming unbothered by the fact that, were it not for her connection with Hiei, they would both be dead. "It is not yet your time."

"I have lived a full life, and so much more. Please, let me stay." He answered, in the same calm tones that seemed to be his natural voice. The wise cast to his words, if they hadn't always been there, might have convinced her.

"Perhaps, but it is still not time for you to come here yet." she replied. "Wait until lives do not depend on it. Would you leave Hiei to go to Hell, because he couldn't bear to be alive long enough to redeem himself?"

"I'm not coming back."

"Well," she said lightly, "Then neither am I." Kurama sighed, and eyed her askance.

"Why do you care?" he asked frankly. "Why does it matter to you?"

"Because I don't want to see you die. And I know someone would be very sad if I let you go." She wasn't talking about Hiei. "Have you had the chance to tell your mother, or your step brother, or your step-father what you are? Have you graduated High School? Have you fallen in love? At least wait a while."

"You really wouldn't stay here if I wouldn't come."

"Bet me." she dared him. Skye took a knife from the sheath at her belt, and flicked it towards the bond, visible in Reikai, that connected her to Hiei, and life. She started to cut through the thick, strong bond. Kurama paled visibly.

"Don't do that!" he yelped, unnerved that someone would lay down their life to stay with him. _Wait, what? To stay with me? Why would she want to do that? Does she even know what she's doing?_

"I'm not leaving you alone in this place."

"I'll come." he retorted ruefully. "But put away the dagger." Skye rolled her eyes, and grabbed his wrist. _Hiei, bring us back, please._ She felt the line connecting her to Hiei drawing back up, pulling Kurama and herself back to life.

She felt sudden resistance from Kurama. Looking back, she saw that he was falling back, he had slipped. She saw him fall, and told Hiei to wait. "Where are you going!" she screeched.

"There is someone I have to see first."

"What! You can't go. What if you can't find your way out again? I'm not letting you…" she trailed off, as he was so obviously ignoring her. "Fine, but I'm coming with you."

They dropped back down to the 'ground', and walked slowly. Kurama was savoring the scent of a flower, one that he didn't see. She could hear him wondering what it was, and if it would grow in a living world.

"It's called Athena's Eye. Athena was the goddess of war and wisdom. The flower is black and white, but beautiful in it's lack of real color. Its scent has a anesthetic effect. It will put you to sleep, if you remain near it too long. I imagine that here it would be stronger." she informed him, knowing he still wasn't listening.

"I wonder, where is Koronue?" he asked after a moment spent in silence. This place was beginning to grow on Skye, she wondered if she really wanted to leave. _What about my patients? My work? I cannot stay, my life isn't over yet._

Kurama sighed. "I don't think I can find him," he finally said, resigned. "But…I really don't want to leave this place. Don't you see why?" She had to admit, she did, but he still needed to return.

_Hiei, talk to him!_

_What?_

_He doesn't want to come back! He wants to stay here, and personally, I can see why, may he never hear me say that. I need your help._

_You want the help of a murderer?_ he replied mockingly, feigning shock.

_You're toying with his life here, _she reminded him grimly. _Can You really afford to mess with me right now? I don't want him to die, either._

_You have feelings for him._

_No! I… I don't, I am a Miko, it's not allowed. Are you going to help me, or not?_

_Tell him I said I'd come to Reikai personally and haul his out of there if he doesn't go with you. Whether I'd come back, or not. _Hiei added darkly. She nodded grimly, though he could not see it.

"Kurama, Hiei has a message for you. And it's not 'I'll miss you', or 'I'll come for you soon'." Skye relayed, shaking her head in distaste at his rough language. She relayed the message.

"Tell him I'm coming. Just let me try and find Koronue." he answered with resignation. She passed on the message, feeling relief wash through Hiei's mind, and shuddering at what he must have been thinking, the kind of fear he must have had.

They passed a spirit, whistling happily as she gardened. Her yellow robes, for she still wore them, told them both she had died as an apprentice Miko. "Excuse me, can you tell me your name?" Skye asked the shade.

"Brightfire. Apprentice Brightfire. Can I help you?" the yellow robed apprentice asked. Skye was sure she heard apprehension, and it occurred to her than any friend Kurama had had as a bandit could not be much good. He would not be in this lovely place.

"Can you tell me where I might find the bandit Koronue?" he winced, knowing how bad 'bandit' sounded here.

"A bandit? He won't be here. Not on this side of Reikai." she snorted, returning to her gardening.

"Kurama, it's time to go." Skye finally told him gently. She touched his shoulder, and asked Hiei to bring them back again. The resistance was there, just as it had been, but she held her charge tight.

They came back with relief into the living realms.


	13. Chapter 13

_The truth shall set you free._

_Chapter thirteen truth_

"I must thank you. I don't know what I was thinking to want to stay in a place like that." Kurama was amending. He gave a small smile, the only kind he was really known to give.

"Neither do I. Even though after a few minutes in that place, I had almost lost the will to stay alive too. It was so…bright. Cheerful. Happy. The only time I ever saw a place like that was through the eyes of someone who had gotten into my Datura. Don't ask."

"Datura? I have heard that name before." Kurama asked anyway. Skye resisted an urge to flash him an irritated glare. Anything could be taken as a weakness. Much better to show nothing at all, however much it might unnerve people. Let them be unnerved, it made dealing with them easier.

"Really? It's supposed to be rather rare in Ningenkai. It can act as a narcotic, but it can also be used as a medicinal herb, that's why I have some dried. The longer they age, the stronger they are." she informed him.

"It doesn't seem like you to have something so dangerous in an accessible place." he answered, studying her with an enigmatic look.

"Oh? You are an expert on my personality now. Enlighten me, if you will." She chuckled, amused.

"Well, your name is Skye Wingthorn, you're fourteen, a fully trained Miko, and own this hospital. You've never fallen in love, and have a strong bond with your patients. You have never had an apprentice, since you don't have one now, and aren't likely to have had one far in the past. You work for no one but the ill." He finished reciting the list, and the look she gave him was appraising.

"Very good, I admire your memory and deduction skills. All wrong, but still quite good. Let me fix it. I'm _two hundred_ and fourteen, have never had training, relying on the modified instinct that replaces it, and no one owns the hospital. I simply manage it. I have fallen in love once, a tragic story, and most of my patients mean little to me.

"My name isn't really Skye Wingthorn, not by birth. It is Reyanina, Reya for short, Wolfcrystal. But you may still call me Skye, that's my current name. I have had several apprentices, all minor prodigies, and I work the will of my ancestors. Satisfied?" she finally finished, breathing deeply.

She couldn't believe she had revealed such _personal_ secrets about herself. And it hurt to know that the one she had once loved was still about, and now she had fallen in love, it seemed, with his best friend.

Poor Hiei, if he ever knew.

"I'm not the same as I was before I was turned to stone. The last question asked of the Wolf Stone was mine, and it was one of the first not asking for information. It was _Will you return me to WolfSister?_ And the spirit of the Wolf Stone answered _yes_. But I have never been the same person, so I adopted a new name for my new personality. Do not tell Hiei who I am by birth."

"Why would it matter to him?" Kurama asked, curious and hurt, that she had been lying to him all along. Skye studied him sorrowfully.

"Has no one told you the story of Reya Moonstone? I am surprised Hiei did not. He… I'll start from the beginning.

"My dam was the first Miko Windstorm. She died in childbirth, forcing me to become Miko at a terribly young age. I knew none of the playing, and toys that most did. My toys were my herbs, my blankets, plans for the future.

"When I was about twenty, very young for the WolfChildren, I met a wandering demon named Hiei. He was…very alone. He fighting a demon, and a strong one at that, possibly stronger than Hiei. But Hiei had an advantage the other demon did not. Live or Die meant nothing to Hiei. All he wanted was one more kill so that he could, by killing, kill his own heart.

"Hiei was mortally injured in the fight, and it was my first time dealing with a fatal wound. He woke up, and thought I was one of those soul reapers, taking him to Reikai. He was wrong, of course. I cared for him for many days, and we became close.

"The winds were carrying his thoughts to me, of course, and I felt terrible about it. He was slowly, but surely, falling in love, and I with him. But it wasn't allowed for a Miko to love. Some did in secret, but when it was found out…it wasn't pretty.

"When it finally came time for Hiei to leave, he found he could not, and we spent six sweet months together. Then came the attack. We woke up one morning, and the Watcher was running for us. Demons were coming, many and strong.

"We evacuated the village for a medium sized cave, so much easier to defend. I set up a barrier in front of the mouth, and the villagers waited in terror. It was a siege. For

a full day I kept the barrier up, knowing that without rests my spirit energy would fail. But stopping would allow the demons, so constantly battering on the shield, to kill my family."

They were both sitting now, as she wove her tale. For the first time since she had been petrified, she was speaking the whole and unveiled truth. It was…disconcerting. She felt naked under Kurama's fascinated gaze.

"Finally my spirit energy failed, and the barrier wavered. I could not let them through, so I drew on life energy as well. I was no longer holding the barrier, I was more the barrier than my own body. It took on a green tint, green as the growing grass, and the scent of a rare flower.

"For three days I kept it up, only stopping when I had nothing left. As a stone, shaped perfectly as my own image, I could do nothing more than watch as the men of my village were tortured, the children beheaded, and the women… I was so enraged, so helpless…there was nothing I could do, I could not move, or even breath. It was terrible, yet the permanence of rock was alluring. I almost wanted to stay that way.

"Finally I thought of the Wolf Stone. It is a stone about the size of a man's fist, yellow, and perfectly shaped like a wolf's paw. Even the hair was there, and as far as I know, it is entirely indestructible. It has a great spirit housed in it, and will answer one question every century.

"I asked it for help, and the century's question was used. I was returned to the form of WolfSister, but my wolf body was not black, but white as snow, with a diffused blue diamond on my brow. My human body was different as well, the same diamond being there. I discovered I was an air adept, and I could draw on any energy strongly, though my forehead would tickle all the while.

"I never again saw Hiei, and my nature was entirely changed. I made a new name for myself, one that suited my personality well. Skye Wingthorn, I truly was from that point.

"I have lived as a recluse all my life, for the most part, helping anyone who sought healing. And that is my story. Guard it well, it has never been told in full before, and likely never will."  
"I will treasure it." he replied solemnly.


	14. Chapter 14

_Remembering, however painful, is the first step to healing._

Epilogue Healing 

Skye finished the healing process, and proclaimed Kurama well, if exhausted. She refused, however, to let him leave until he had rested and was at the top of his health. It was a Miko's job, right? But maybe it was a little more.

She wanted Kurama to stay, and she knew it. How could she ever really let him go? She had died – literally – for him, and brought him back from Reikai. She'd nursed him through a deadly epidemic…and maybe even fallen in love.

She didn't want to admit that. Half of the pain of becoming Skye Wingthorn was realizing that in doing so, she was letting go of Hiei. But even if she told him, there was no denying that it wouldn't work out. They were both different, and she knew it. She was no longer Reyanina, First Miko of the WolfChildren, but Skye Wingthorn, a Miko who lived on her own, and served only the sick.

She'd lost a lot of her innocence, and a piece of her heart in that change, the former of which would never recover. But she was beginning to think that in the presence of Kurama, she was healing.

She was a different person, and her name fit her like a glove. Wingthorn. It was hard to believe that she had relived all that, all of it true, with someone she barely knew. That was trust for you – entirely unpredictable.

But now…she had to confront Hiei.

"Hiei…I need to talk to you." She requested hesitantly. He was surprised, though only the wind told her so, that she was showing hesitance. She swallowed hard, and closed her eyes. "This is…very difficult. I haven't been entirely…honest with you."

He narrowed his eyes, suspicious emanating from him, carried by the wind in swirls. It's hard metallic odor – so much like blood – came to her through the breeze.

"Reya… Reya isn't dead." She told him, dreading the feelings that would come to her next. Shock, hatred, fury. The last thing she expected was confusion. He did not say a word, but his eyes begged her to explain. "I am…. Was…. Reyanina Moonstone. But I am not anymore. I am Skye Wingthorn now, and that is no longer just an identity. It's who I have become.

"I loved you once, and you, I. It worked out so well, I had hoped it would never end. But, then the attack came. When the Wolf Stone took my spirit from the statue that was once my body, he fashioned a new one, a white wolf instead of black, and gave me the chance to choose my human form. I love the elves ears, but other than that, I decided to be simple about it.

"He marked me with a blue diamond," she went on, pointing to her forehead. She rubbed off the dye from a mixture of natural ingredients, and a diffused blue diamond showed. It glowed in the sunlight like a miniature sun itself. "Just here. And He changed my spirit as well. I am not who I was, not exactly.

"I understand if you don't want me to say this, but we cannot fool ourselves into thinking we still have something. We don't, we have both changed a lot. And I am going to be starkly honest with you…I really think I kind of…. Click…. With Kurama. It has nothing to do with you, and I really don't think I could have avoided it no matter how hard I tried.

"I am sorry."

Skye bowed her head, fully expecting fury, and willing to accept death by Hiei's katana if he willed it. But it seemed he didn't. He just stared at the ground, looking as lost as he had when they admitted their feelings for each other, so many years ago. By human standards she was… awe inspiringly old. But as a WolfSister, she was just entering her prime. She wondered if Hiei knew that, and decided upon reflection it did not matter. They both had a right to be confused.

"You told me once that 'sorry' would fix nothing. What is done is done, and a string of sounds cannot change a thing. I think I understand what you mean now. It is the intent that can really change things."

"….no, I meant-"

"But even so, sorry will not make it hurt any less, and it won't take back all the damage I have done. I would change for the better in its stead, but I don't know that I can.

"When you left me, the world came crashing down. But now, perhaps, I can move on knowing you are still alive. Thank you for showing me that the heart cannot be silenced by blood. I need to leave, to find a way to get in speaking range of Koenma without being brought down as a dangerous killer. Fair day." And with that, he turned on his heel and left.

"Hiei?" she called. He looked over his shoulder, seeming to have exhausted his supply of words. _Don't ever expect me to give another speech like that._ he warned, knowing she would hear.

"Thank you."

My name is Eri Windstorm, and I now inhabit the Wolf Stone. It has been my duty to record the great happenings in the living realms, though my question has recently been used by a fire demon, one who wanted to know how to fix what he has done.

Thank you for hearing my tale, and the tale of my daughter, Skye Wingthorn, former Reya Moonstone. I am sure that there will soon be another one, for adventures seem to follow her.

While I have enjoyed watching my daughter grow, it is finally time to move on and allow the spirit of another of the WolfChildren to take my place as I move on to the next world.

Now _that_ will be an adventure.


End file.
